I can't clearly remember whether this issue was resolved or confirmed at the 2013 Summit.
Here's an example of the issue at hand -
Play is heads-up, say on the turn. Player A is first to act, player B is on the button.
Player B checks (OOT). The dealer redirects action to A, who bets. Player B calls.
On the river, Player B checks, out of turn again. The dealer redirects action to A, who bets. Player B now * surprise * wakes up with raise!
Essentially, player B appears to have feigned weakness, possibly in order to induce a bet from A. This is somewhat opposite to the other common 'angle' in which a player last to act will make an aggressive action out of turn to deter the opponent who was supposed to act first from betting on the river.
K: The general topic of whether to leave the rule as-is or to add the "limiting" RRoP language definitely came up at the 2013 Summit and was discussed at some length. There is definitely a camp that would like to add the limitation. At the end of the day the rule stood unchanged for stated and un-stated reasons that include:
1.
In general the majority of action OOT is accidental, as Tristan mentions he doesn't see intentional OOT that often.
2. When Action OOT happens, the rightful players have alot of information and control over the OOT player: A) they know what he'd like to do in the situation; and B) they can lock him into his action by not changing anything. The majority camp (or a sizeable enough contingent) at Summit 2013 felt that going further and allowing the rightful player to be able to bet without fear of raise (or with a pre-defined raise limit) was giving too much control to the skipped player (in typical situations).
3. Some version of this rule has been in force since at least 2007 (?) without major reported problems, everyone is pretty familiar with it by now (see history below)
That's a summary from memory on the 2013 Summit. It should be noted that the discussion was on OOT Action in general, not specifically OOT action heads-up as in your example.
To look at the rule itself, it does begin with the language "Action out of turn is subject to penalty". Holding this guy to a call here could be considered a form of penalty but absolutely you could use Rule 1 here to limit him to a call.
TDA rules are not intended to be "technicalities" that players can use to perpetrate an angle. It's interesting to look at how this rule has evolved:
2007 language:
Action out of turn may be binding and will be binding if the action to that player has not changed. A check, call, or fold is not considered action-changing. So this rule says OOTA is binding if the action doesn't change, but what if it does change? "may" be binding... this leaves questions as to when or when it isn't, is it left to TD discretion... how can we have a uniform rule with such language?
2009 language:
Players are required to act in turn. Action out of turn will be binding if the action to that player has not changed. A check, call or fold is not considered action changing. Note the 2009 language got rid of the "may be binding" intro, more on that in a bit. Again it's clear about when the action will be binding, but isn't clear as to what happens when action changes...
2011 language:
Action out of turn will be binding if the action to that player has not changed. A check, call or fold does not change action. If action changes, the out of turn bet is not binding & is returned to the out of turn player who has all options: calling, raising, or folding. An out-of-turn fold is binding. Note: The 2011 language was made very specific: exactly what happens
IF the action changes. The 2007 and 2009 language was vague on what would happen if the action changed, and there were many questions as to what exactly the options are: "...does that mean he can retract his OOT bet, does that mean he can fold, etc. etc.". From memory, the WSOP rules had this extra specificity in place before the 2011 Summit, spelling out unmistakably what happens... I vaguely recall the WSOP rule being a starting point for the 2011 TDA language but could be wrong on that.
2013 language:
A: Action out of turn is subject to penalty and is binding if the action to the OOT player has not changed. A check, call or fold does not change action. If action changes, the OOT bet is not binding and is returned to the OOT player who has all options including: calling, raising, or folding. An OOT fold is binding.Note the 2013 language adds the line "is subject to penalty". Dave Lamb has made the point that by definition violations of ALL TDA rules are subject to penalty, but when it's specifically mentioned in the rules that indicates a particularly egregious violation.
Strictly speaking, according to Rule 38, B's raise would be permitted, as A's bet was action-changing. A penalty would most likely be assessed to player B at the end of the hand. I believe this is where the rule currently stands, if I'm not mistaken.
K: that's definitely a true literal interpretation. However as you point out below, Rule 1 is always present.
In fact that's the objection to having Rule 1 specifically cited under the Accepted Action language...
it's always present, why point it out? (and of course there's reasons for pointing it out under Accepted Action as have been extensively discussed). Further, just massaging the concept of "penalty" a bit it's not hard to arrive at the idea that this rule is not intended to be abused as a technicality to support angles.
For those of you who remember me bringing this issue up pre-summit though, many old-school TDs, like me, were happy applying the Robert's Rule version of this rule to tournaments, that effectively limit what player B may do in this situation. More specifically, since B has made a "passive" action OOT, he loses the right to take aggressive action on the same street when action properly returns to him:
You're definitely not alone. There's a solid camp of support for this approach and it was well-represented at the 2013 Summit, just didn't carry the day on the final vote largely for the reasons mentioned above. This really is one of those "philosophical divides" in the industry (like whether the winning hand must always be shown, or whether a hand skipped by substantial action OOT is always dead, or when a request to see a hand must be honored) that may be around for awhile.
The challenge at 2015 Summit will be to see if we can bring these views a bit closer together. Just thinking out loud, if we could retain the essence of the rule that's been in place for some years, but add clearly stated protection for cases of obvious angles such as your example, or revisit the "may be binding" language....
Here's the RRoP language
11. Deliberately acting out of turn will not be tolerated. A player who checks out of turn may not bet or raise on the next turn to act. A player who has called out of turn may not change his wager to a raise on the next turn to act. An action or verbal declaration out of turn is binding unless the action to that player is subsequently changed by a bet or raise. If there is an intervening call, an action may be ruled binding.
1. [In Tournaments] Whenever possible, all rules are the same as those that apply to live games.
Am I correct in assuming that the current stance of the TDA is NOT to adopt RR's clarification (i.e. B will always have all options open in this situation)? Would you ever consider making an exception under Rule 1 to limit B's range of acceptable actions (especially in this case where there have been repeated OOT actions in the same hand)? What would be your standard penalty for B here, assuming no prior history (e.g. 1 round?)
Correct, the TDA did not adopt the RRoP limitation in 2013 and had not for several summits prior. Personally I would definitely consider Rule 1 here and would encourage discussion of how that might be formalized into the rules at Summit 2015. Penalty here: I would almost certainly limit the guy to a call and then probably a 2-missed-hand penalty for first offense (regardless of number of players at the table)... for deliberate action out of turn.
Thanks for the great post, let's link this to suggestions for the 2015 Summit:
http://www.pokertda.com/forum/index.php?topic=989.0